Battle Scarred
by Spectral Scribe
Summary: The things they lost in the war. Post-DH vignettes, one per character. May do more if requested.
1. Hermione: Grades

**Battle-Scarred**

_The things they lost in the war._

* * *

**Hermione: Grades**

In an unexpected twist, Hermione was the least enthusiastic out of all of them to go back to take their NEWTS. Harry and Ron both insisted they needed passing scores to be Aurors (though Kingsley would have had them even if they got straight T's), but when they asked Hermione how her studying was coming, she looked at them oddly.

"What's the point?" she asked.

Harry and Ron stared at her as if she'd grown an extra head. Ron cleared his throat and scratched his head. "Er—say again?"

Her eyes were on them, but she wasn't seeing their faces. She was seeing a tent set up on ice-crusted ground, a dragon flying away from Diagon Alley, Bellatrix Lestrange's face staring back at her from a mirror, Bellatrix's laughing face with her wand raised as Hermione screamed and screamed…

"After all we did," she started, her lips moving slowly, strangely. "It just seems silly to get worked up over something as trivial as grades."

Later, she dug out her old copy of _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1_. She remembered how a little bushy-haired girl had devoured the book eagerly, memorizing everything. She remembered how she had stayed up late the night before tests, going over and over the material because grades were everything. Grades were the only thing that told children how successful and knowledgeable they were. Logically, those with good grades would go on to achieve great things, and those without would not.

But grades didn't matter when you were staring death in the face, or when a madwoman was sending fiery spikes of pain through your body that made you _wish_ for death… In the end, the people who died at the Battle of Hogwarts were not the bad students; the survivors were not the ones who had gotten all O's on their OWLS. Death was unbiased.

She missed those days when her greatest worry was whether or not she'd scored the extra credit point on her Charms exam. Life was much simpler that way.

Hermione put her forehead against the cover of the book, but no tears came: only a bone-deep, infinite weariness.

She studied because she felt she had to, but she got no pleasure from it as she had once done. It was Harry and Ron who set up their study sessions. She merely drifted along with them.

Hermione Granger got all O's on her NEWTS.


	2. Ron: Invisibility

**Battle-Scarred**

_The things they lost in the war._

* * *

**Ron: Invisibility**

Everywhere he went, people wanted to shake his hand.

Ron had not expected this. He had assumed, without any bitterness, that Harry would be the one they all wanted to see—after all, he was the one who had defeated Voldemort, in the end.

But everyone seemed to know that it was him and Hermione who had spent the last year on a dangerous mission with Harry Potter. And everyone wanted to know their story.

At Fred's funeral—_Fred's bloody funeral_—a reporter had somehow gotten the date and location and came to accost them. He got to Ron first and started asking him what exactly he'd been up to the last year, and if he had a few inspiring words for his dedicated fans.

Ron punched him in the face.

It had taken Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Bill, and Charlie working together to calm him down. He was so angry that he wasn't even thinking of Fred as his brother was lowered into the ground, and when he came back later to stare at the blurring headstone, he knew he would never get that moment back. He still hadn't said goodbye.

He couldn't go to Diagon Alley for a time. There were always people who wanted a picture of Ron with their children, or to hear his story, or to have him come speak at their book club or Quidditch tournament or _whatever_.

It took him ages to sort through his mail. Owls came daily, dropping dozens of letters onto his head and lap as he tried to eat breakfast or study for NEWTS or have a dip in the creek. Most of it was words of thanks from admirers. Some were entirely-capitalized, poorly articulated rants about how he had aided in the destruction of wizardkind's noble quest for rightful pureblood domination. A few of these came with curses that burned his fingers, and he had taken to scanning each one before he opened it as a precaution.

Ron knew Harry had it worse. Sometimes Harry would go off under his invisibility cloak for hours—not to do anything special, but just so no one would look at him. So he could breathe. Ron had never understood Harry's desire to be invisible. With five successful older brothers, he had felt invisible for most of his life.

Now he felt as if he were walking around naked.

He remembered a time when he was jealous of Harry for all the attention he got. He'd longed for the fame—to be remembered for something great. His best Hogwarts moment had been the whole of the Quidditch pitch chanting, "Weasley is our king!"

Ron had never really appreciated everything he had. Not money, not fame—but a family who cared about him. He'd wanted the opposite, just as Harry had longed for the thing he had never had.

Ron thought he understood his best friend a lot better now.

He'd seen death, had felt the heart-pounding terror of true danger, had left his friends when they needed him, and had a piece of his family ripped away from him. The good he'd done—_destroying the locket_—always seemed to be overshadowed in his mind by the absolute horror of everything else.

He thought it was a shame that in order to stop being a petty, jealous child, he had to be involved in something that he really didn't want to be famous for. In the end, he'd got what he'd wanted, hadn't he?


	3. George: Laughter

**Battle-Scarred**

_The things they lost in the war._

* * *

**George: Laughter**

Sometimes he would do a double-take when he saw a mirror. But then he would notice the missing ear, and that was how he knew it wasn't Fred.

Sometimes he would say things aloud in his room, and when there was silence, he would reply to himself as if he were Fred.

Sometimes he would think of a prank, or hear a joke, and look around for his twin with a ready-grin on his face, almost laughing—but he didn't.

George didn't laugh anymore.


	4. Luna: Belief

**Battle-Scarred**

_The things they lost in the war._

* * *

**Luna: Belief**

Luna never questioned the existence of impossible things. She was, after all, a witch, and grew up around quite impossible things such as magic. Also, her father always told her these things existed, and a child never questions her parent, does she?

People thought she was weird. They just couldn't see the world the way she did.

The way Luna saw it, everything that hadn't already been disproven was possible.

When she was taken from the Hogwarts Express, she still believed in Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

Then she was put in the dungeon.

"Hello, Mr. Ollivander. It appears you have wrackspurts on you, did you know?"

It turned out he didn't. He was just old and beaten and confused at her appearance. He had spent so much time alone.

When Draco came into the cellar, he always looked frightened. Luna felt a bit bad for him. It was clear he was stuck in a situation he didn't want to be in.

Much like Luna. She wasn't fond of being tortured. Also, she was very often quite hungry.

"I'm sure my friends will come," she would say to Ollivander. "Harry usually comes when people are in distress."

But time went on, and they didn't come. And Luna became more tired, more hungry, and more pained. Sometimes she cried.

And she stopped believing.

Her father had always told her good things happened to good people, but Luna was a good person, and here she was. She wasn't sure she believed anything her father said. Did he really know any better than anyone else? She had believed his every word as a child, because he was an adult. But Luna saw now just how fallible adults were. They didn't know everything. She was very nearly one herself, and there were plenty of things she didn't know. Was her father wrong? Was everything she believed in a lie?

Were Crumple-Horned Snorkacks even _real_?

It was too late, by the time Harry and Ron and Dean and the goblin arrived. She was happy to see them, and even happier when they helped her get free. She thought the sky was so beautiful, when she arrived at the cottage. It was a wonder that such a thing could exist. She marveled at the grass, and the sea. They had been such impossibilities while she was trapped at Malfoy Manor, she had almost forgotten about them.

But the world was not as it had once been. When she got used to the sky and the grass and the sea, she saw how ordinary they all were. Most things in the world were actually quite ordinary.

And sometimes, bad things happened to good people. Not everything was possible.

She was free.

(But she still didn't believe in Crumple-Horned Snorkacks anymore)


	5. Draco: Pride

**Battle-Scarred**

_The things they lost in the war._

* * *

**Draco: Pride**

Being a Malfoy had always been something to be proud of.

He'd strutted about at nine, twelve, fourteen—thinking himself superior to everyone who passed by. His father had always told him Malfoys were better than others because they were the purest of purebloods, and blood purity was everything. He taught Draco to look down on everyone else.

Draco was proud of being a Malfoy, even after his father had been imprisoned in Azkaban. He was proud and angry, and determined to raise the Malfoy name to its former glory (though, in the end, he hadn't had the balls to do it, had he?).

When Draco was seventeen, he forgot what pride even was. He spent most of his time a moment away from a panic attack, hiding around corners because he thought the Dark Lord might pass through, waking every hour with nightmares.

He could still hear their screams. That stupid Lovegood girl's face swam in his mind, and Ollivander's broken form, and the children—oh god, the muggle children…

With every spot of red he saw blood. He couldn't be around candles anymore (too much like fiendfyre—too much like Crabbe, who showed up in his dreams, flesh blackened to the bone). The color green made his wand hand tremble. The sight of snakes made him want to vomit (Nagini, he would never forget—devouring muggles like chocolate frogs).

These phobias hadn't happened until after. Once the Dark Lord was slain, and his father was back in prison, and he and his mother were alone in his house, and every creaking floorboard he thought was the Dark Lord coming from beyond the grave, coming to kill him.

He wasn't proud to be a Malfoy anymore. He wasn't proud to be a human being—if he could even call himself that. He was revolted by every inch of his dirty flesh (not pure, like his father had always told him, he was _dirty_ and _stained with the blood of others_), and he wasn't sure he would ever feel pride in himself again.

He wasn't even sure he wanted to exist anymore.


	6. Harry: Motion

**Battle-Scarred**

_The things they lost in the war._

* * *

**Harry: Motion**

Harry Potter's whole life was one blur of motion.

From the time he was a child, he spent his days working: weeding the garden, cleaning the floors, cooking dinner. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon never let him stop moving until it was time to shut him up in the cupboard for the night, and then he would sleep fitfully, his mind invaded by nightmares of green flashes and high, cold laughter.

Even when he was sitting still in class, his mind would be racing with fantastical visions of flying motorcycles and how on _earth_ he had ended up on the roof that one time. Maybe he could fly?

It turned out, he could.

When he got to Hogwarts, he landed almost instantly on the Quidditch team, and away he was again, soaring around the grounds on his brand new broom, just a blur of red and gold in the sky.

He was always planning, thinking, solving. Diving blindly down trapdoors guarded by three-headed dogs, killing basilisks, fighting off dementors, performing some ridiculous stunt for the Triwizard Tournament, racing to the Department of Mysteries, fighting death eaters, fighting Voldemort, hopping across the country in a tent, destroying horcruxes, and fighting, and fighting, and fighting. And _moving_.

If the adversary wasn't his near-abusive relatives, it was near-evil (and sometimes completely evil) professors, or monsters, or Lord Voldemort himself. There was always something to fight, always something to move to.

So when the battle was won, and Voldemort vanquished, and the whole of the wizarding world celebrating their victory—Harry _stopped moving_.

The remaining death eaters were scattered and running for their lives. The ministry was back under the control of the good guys. All of Hagrid's blast-ended skrewts had long died. There was no one to fight.

He sat with Ginny at the Burrow, summer sun goldenly alighting the grassy hills. He'd been doing a lot of sitting lately. Ron had once suggested a game of Quidditch, but Harry wasn't interested. He didn't have his broom anymore, anyway.

So he sat. He had never noticed how quiet the world was, when you sat still.

He thought Ginny had come to sit with him because she wanted to snog or something, but she made no move, so he didn't either. Eventually she turned to face him, and he was surprised to find her looking angry.

"So you're just going to sit here all day, is that it?" she demanded.

Harry shrugged.

She crossed her arms. "Why can't you just…" She sighed.

Harry gazed off at the setting sun. "Just what?"

"Look around, will you?" She stuck her face in front of his. "Dad and Percy are doing major cleanup for the Ministry so it can get back on its feet. Bill and Fleur are pregnant. George is reopening the shop. And Ron and Hermione are always together, looking as if they'll be married within a year."

Harry sincerely doubted that last one. Hermione was a bit too sensible to marry before she had a career in place. He was about to voice this, but Ginny cut him off.

"Do you know what I'm saying?"

"Er…" He faltered. "Not really."

Ginny gave another aggravated sigh. "They're all _moving on_, Harry, every one of them! Even George! And I feel like you and I are just… sitting around. I can't even tell whether you care about me or not anymore."

Stung, Harry whirled to face her. "I do!"

"Then why can't we move forward? I know it's hard, it's hard on all of us, but you can't just stay stuck in the past forever!" she argued, her eyes hard and glinting, her hair fiery in the glow of the setting sun.

Harry's tongue was stuck in his throat. How could he explain the stagnation he had felt since May? How could he explain the vast, empty gulf that was his future, a future that he dared not contemplate? The farthest ahead he was capable of thinking was the next meal. Every time Ginny had brought up the future of their relationship, Harry just waved her off. How could he explain the agonizing impossibility of even _thinking_ of these things? Of thinking beyond the sun on the hills and the wind in his face and the deadly quiet of the world?

So he just shook his head. "Ginny, I can't—"

Ginny stood up abruptly. "Forget it."

So he sat there, the world as silent and still as the bodies that had once lined the Great Hall, which he saw on the inside of his eyelids whenever he lay down to sleep. This was why he didn't sleep very much.

Ron noticed Ginny's irritation towards Harry and confronted him about it. Harry admitted that he wasn't quite sure what his problem was.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" said Ron, and when Harry shook his head, he continued: "Well, in the middle of the Battle, you somehow came to accept your impending death in about half an hour, a bloody remarkable feat. You let go of your life. And then you walked to what you thought would be the end for you, only it wasn't. Life was thrown back at you. You just haven't figured out how to take it up again."

Harry stared. "_That_ was obvious to you?"

Ron's ears went red and he shrugged a little. "Well, yeah. A bit."

"You _have_ been spending too much time with Hermione."

They were quiet for a minute. Ron made sense. He wasn't really sure how to live anymore. But it wasn't just because he'd let everything go on that walk into the forest. "I guess I just feel like I'm not going _towards_ anything anymore. Instead I'm going away from what was the whole point of my life."

Ron snorted. "Who the bloody hell knows what's the point of anything?"

Harry breathed in the clear summer air. "S'pose you're right."

"Guess we ought to just make it up as we go along, yeah?" Ron asked. "Like writing a Potions essay?"

Harry was surprised to find himself laughing. "Fancy throwing a Quaffle around before it gets dark?"

"I'll kick _your_ sorry arse, you're only good at catching little golden things," said Ron as he headed for the broom shed.

Harry stood up, and he started moving.


End file.
